Overwatch: Life and Death and the One in the Middle
by Dolphinflavoredicecream
Summary: What will happen when Tracer is put between saving a life and ending it, again? She puts her fate on the line to save someone else's, and the stakes have never been higher. What's worse than death, is living through it.


Style inspired by the original Overwatch cinematics. Enjoy :D

All is quiet in the grass plains. The green foliage sits in its place all day, content as can be, only experiencing a calm, soothing wind once in a while. The sun bleeds through the heavy grey clouds and shines its beams of life on to the earth, providing the resplendently indifferent grass its' energy, and perhaps giving the grass a true reason to live.

 _"WOAH!"_ hurtling through the vast plains at top speeds, Tracer is communicating with another via her earphone. She travels too fast for the near eye to follow: she only leaves a trail of fading orange and blue from her uniform, and another trail of tragically murdered grass.

"That happened this morning?!" She asks in quaint concern, trampling and killing the innocent greenery.

"Yes." A low, intelligent voice responds, barely discernable through the wind resistance. "And it must end this evening. …Preferably earlier. Most of the team is already deployed, fighting off a rather hostile threat in Australia, and we needed this taken care of as quick as possible, so, you were the obvious choice." He laughs a bit.

"Jolly good!" Tracer exclaims. "Good thing my alarm went off this morning!" As she breaks the sound barrier, speeding ludicrously through the acres of grass, she passes by multiple small African villages. Her unimpressionable velocity fascinates the people residing, and her faint trail of orange (and dead grass) causes a great gust of wind to scatter in its wake.

Tracer's microphone rings a high-pitched screech.

"Ah!" Winston on the other line yelps. "Maybe try doing that when you aren't on the- phone with someone?"

She nervously laughs. "Heh, sorry! Just trying to get there! Where's that bloke hidin' out again?"

Winston recovers from his deafening to respond, in his signature serious and proud tone: "There are about 34 major solar-energy plants in the Sahara Desert. We don't know exactly which one, but we know Reaper is going to use the energy from one of them for something big. Check the largest ones first and go from there. And please, if you can hurry any more than you are now, we need Mercy on the field as fast as possible: Reaper's tantrum was poorly-timed, and we need all of our resources on this threat before it's too late."

"You got it." Tracer assures. The foliage starts slowly fading away as she reaches another biome (thank god): the Sahara Desert.

"Oh, and, uh, Tracer?" Winston adds.

"Please, it's Lena."

"Um- Lena?"

"What's wrong?"

"I uh, hate to say this, but" he pauses, "be careful."

Tracer listens silently.

"Good luck." Winston promptly ends the call.

Absorbing this information quietly, Tracer turns off her earphone. She determines: "I'm on my way." She then summons the energy to speed herself up.

The ground she strides now is not alive, nor is it dead. Sand is stubborn, and it waits, ominously still and unmoving, like the gaze of death.

"Alright, time to slow down…" Tracer finally arrives at the desert, but she is going at least eight hundred miles an hour, and cannot easily stop herself. In the far distance she sees a gentle cliff leading to a noticeable decrease in altitude.

Carefully, she begins to slow down, minutely lengthening the gap between strides. She is upon the dune, but as she passes over the top she instantly spots an unassuming camel sitting at the bottom of the hill.

"WAH!" Going faster than a rocket ship, Tracer reacts in an instant, and disappears.

Some 50,000 feet back she reappears at the same speed in a panic, and plants her weight on her heels, desperately working against inertia. Sand spurts from her feet as she skids, raising into the sky, and into her face. Thinking quickly, and approaching the camel more quickly, Tracer blinks herself 180 degrees backwards, and tries to run.

 _"Come on-!"_ She painfully presses her foot into the sand and pushes it forward – one step – and again – two steps. The effects of her struggle only amount to reducing her speed by half (still quite fast), and she is running herself out of options. As the cliff is less than 5,000 feet away, Tracer takes out her dual side-arms and forcefully roots them in the ground. After no more than five long seconds of unloading her clips into the sand - and screaming - her speed slows, and she eventually reaches the top of the dune; however, she is still moving.

"Hah!" She laughs triumphantly as she continues to slide further. Suddenly, she loses her balance and falls on her back, tumbling forth and hitting all the important bones on her way down. She hits the ground and rolls uncontrollably until she finally makes contact with the camel, which has not moved at all.

While staring up at the camel and into the sun, Tracer fights back tears of pain.

 _"Ow…"_ she winces. _"…I really wish Mercy were here…"_

The camel still stands: unimpressed.

"Was it worth it …?" She asks the camel.

The two have prolonged eye contact, both pondering this question.

"Wait a second!" Tracer exclaims happily. Suddenly she vanishes, and reappears back-

On her way down the cliff.

She got it figured out, and long story short, Tracer was back in business. Unfortunately, however, she did forget sun-screen.

Atop one of the taller dunes, she surveyed the area using a pair of sleek binoculars. With the aid of the blaring sun, the biggest plant was the easiest to spot: its giant field of panels shined brightly on the horizon.

 _"Reaper must plan to kill her,"_ Tracer reasoned, _"But why a solar plant?"_

She put away the binoculars and leaned on her hip.

"Wonder if he's expecting me…"

In the stark silence of the desert, and the gentle wind, that ventured sometimes to pick up sand and carry it a small distance, Tracer, influenced by some suspicious, unnamable feeling, squinted at the shiny speck on the horizon for a time. A flicker of light; a stop of the sun's glare on the plant that, seemed so insignificant, captured her attention. Tracer quickly pulled her binoculars back up, and instead of seeing what happened, she heard a low, booming, delayed explosion, and finally a spectacular ray of pure glowing light that shot up into the sky and then faded.

With dramatic vigilance she scrutinized the tiny blotch on the horizon. On the main building of the facility, she could see a gaping hole ripped open in the roof. Dust and smoke still loomed over the building. Tracer removed her binoculars in astonishment, and grave concern.

Without saying a word, she put the binoculars away and started determinedly stretching her legs in provision.

She spoke with intensity as she stretched: _"Don't worry, love."_

Quickly she got into running position. _"Cavalries 'ere."_

And she was off.

It was only her at that point: dashing through the sand, with no one else to aid her. What was her plan? What was Reaper's plan? Did Mercy have a plan? Tracer only had her catchphrase to answer these questions.

* * *

Rubble and dust envelops the room: nothing to be seen, nothing to be heard. Two figures remain: one standing deathly still, and the other hurt on the floor. They slowly appear through the murky haze of an explosion's aftermath. As the shroud of fog fades away, and the figures are revealed in a dark room illuminated with sunlight from the ceiling, the silence is broken by a deteriorating sob. Mercy, appearing injured on the floor, weeps openly in anguish, as Reaper stands completely still in the center of the room, silently losing control of his anger.

 _"I'm sorry-"_ Mercy speaks inaudibly.

Reaper begins breathing vigorously in rage. Suddenly, in a motion startling Mercy, he turns and paces toward her. She tries to move away but injury prevents it.

 _"Ah-!"_ Mercy yelps as Reaper grabs her by the neck, and raises her off the ground. _"Please-!"_ She cries, strangled by a deadly grip.

Reaper almost laughs. "Too late, Mercy… _Ten years_ too late!" Swiftly he carries her with his one hand over to a large operating table, propped up almost vertically to the wall, as Mercy is suffocated to near death.

He throws her against the table and hits a button on the side that restrains her arms and legs with metal braces. As he lets go of Mercy's neck, allowing her to gasp for breath, Reaper moves to a holographic terminal nearby and starts typing away.

"If you won't do it for _me_ ," he shouted, "maybe you'll do it for yourself."

Reaper presses another button and multiple lights come on, all focused on Mercy, who has daringly tamed her tears.

"You didn't deserve to die," Mercy speaks, as Reaper walks briskly to the other end of the room. "I am sorry you met such a cruel fate, and I am sorry I failed to fix it – but there is still time!"

 _"I'm done waiting!"_ Reaper arrives at a large control panel, complete with security control, covered in dirt and rubble. He swipes it away furiously and starts typing.

Mercy is struck by anger and regret. She beseeches in her mind that she will live through this.

Suddenly Reaper stops typing, for his attention is brought to the security- camera screens. He stares suspiciously. In the field of solar panels outside, there seems to be a flash of light blinking between each panel, surreptitiously evading line of sight.

Inexpressible anger catches Reaper's tongue: "EERHH!" Refocusing, he finishes a last line of code and hits enter. A progress bar appears on-screen, and Mercy recoils in pain.

"What are you doing to me!?" She yells.

As Reaper becomes a wraith-like mist, and heads out the door of the main room, he says: "I hope it hurts."

 _"Almost there, Tracer…"_ Tracer tells herself. She is only yards away from the main entrance, which is almost inaccessible due to concrete, rubble blockage. She peeks around the panel slowly, and the instant she sees a security camera, she (mini)blinks back into position.

Hesitation overtakes her. Tracer tries to think about what her plan should be, but she cannot know until she knows where Reaper is. Risking efficiency for time, she quickly dashes from behind the last solar panel in the field, and arrives at the front door. Directly in a camera's sight, she goes as fast as she can, opening the door and blinking inside.

Was it a bad idea? Tracer does not rightly know, because everything is pitch-black. Under immense pressure, she takes comfort in her superhuman speed: she can react as fast as her mind can think. Nothing can phase her, but what will happen if she hesitates?

Walking very carefully, but at a bold pace, she makes her way forward. The only dim light to guide her is the blue glow from her chronal accelerator: an insufficient light, but nonetheless a light credible to the cure of her fatal condition. Tracer was never fond of ghosts, let alone a physical manifestation of death: unfortunate that she should have to manage both in the same day.

As she watchfully jaunts across the pitch-black corridors, preternatural superstitions envelop the atmosphere. The silence in the cold air occasionally breaks when an echo of something is heard from afar – or nearby? – causing Tracer to never have her focus in one direction for longer than a second.

 _"Ow-"_ Her head bonks on a door loudly. As she tries to deal with the flaring pain in her head, she realizes that a door might mean an ambush, so, as quick as she can, she primes her pulse pistols and stands at the ready. Without her sight, a blink in the wrong direction might throw her in to a wall: a disadvantage she is frightened at the thought of.

As adrenaline, from fear or excitement, starts to kick in, she slowly opens the door in front of her, and it creaks like century-old wood. A light shines some distance away – it gives her a sense of direction: She is in a hallway, but the hallway is curved into the shape of a quarter-circle, and on a gentle incline, meaning the light's source is not yet known.

From behind, the quietest clink in the dead silence alerts Tracer to the door; before even comprehending the sound, she blinks straight away from the entry, and instantaneously after, a shotgun blasts down the hall. In a sudden flurry of flashing gunshots and blinks too quick to follow, Tracer dashes up and out of the hallway, by some miracle avoiding all the shots.

Thinking entirely on her feet now, Tracer quickly reads the situation. She was just shot at, and she almost had a heart attack, but the brightly lit storage room she is in is wide and full of miscellaneous objects, scattered and tall enough to hide behind. No sign of Mercy though.

 _"DIE!"_ Reaper reaches the top of the hallway faster than expected and fires at Tracer. In response, she dashes to the side and all around, unpredictably. Reaper continues following Tracer's general trail but it seems he isn't able to land a shot.

Consequently, there are bullet holes in all the boxes and mechanical parts. Now hiding behind a safe cover, Tracer calls out:

"It's not nice to shoot things that aren't yours, ya know."

Reaper throws his shotguns on the floor, and engenders two more as he heads into the clutter.

 _"Shut up."_ Reaper mutters with edginess.

That puts a smile on Tracer's face, and so, she confidently starts making her way deeper into the room, navigating through aisles of both new and old solar panel parts.

"I'm not in the mood." Reaper calls out as he walks slowly, turning around every few seconds, with his shotguns aimed outward.

Suddenly a flash of blue light and a _"fwoop"_ comes from a clearing in the aisles. Reaper fires immediately but misses.

"You need to learn to express your anger more constructively; ever try painting?"

"Ever try _dying_?"

"No, not really." Tracer replies casually, as she blinks over his head and back into cover, resulting in another volley from Reaper.

After landing on the ground, Tracer feels a palpable pang on her forearm: a part of Reaper's shot was lodged into her muscle. She hastily gauges the pain but has no time for treatment. Disappointed in herself, she realizes she has to make a decision. Reaper may know where she is hiding right now, and she cannot continue with her wound.

"Don't _test_ me!" Reaper takes a defensive stance, preparing to rebuff another advance.

"Why not?" Tracer giggles a bit in asking this.

"You're only delaying the inevitable…" Reaper speaks grimly as he watches keenly his surroundings.

In a sudden fit of realization, Tracer refocuses herself.

"Where are you keeping Angela?"

Reaper laughs maniacally under his breath, as he carefully walks to where he thinks Tracer is hiding.

"You seem so _eager_ to save her…" A rustle in a pile of parts quickly shifts Reaper's attention. Tracer, who traversed the aisle silently and is now hiding up above, atop a tall shelf, among many rows of shelves, has a plan in her mind to take out the enemy.

"But you only care about saving yourself…" He continues.

These words affront Tracer: she is driven to retort but must keep silent.

"How many innocent people have died, because of _your own selfish behavior?"_ The masked man still treads the ground, searching for the slightest cue to shoot.

Questioned directly, she cannot refute this. Memories of past mistakes; sacrifices she's had to make flood her mind. The thought of that night in London, and her own emotion is too much to bare for her defenseless tear ducts. Blinded by her fervent emotions, she compromises herself.

"What was I supposed to do!?" Tracer outbursts.

Reaper fires immediately at Tracer's voice. She reaches for cover, but there is none, so she jumps off the platform in panic. In another flash of rapid events, the shelf is knocked down, into the next shelf, Tracer, in mid-air, blinks several times trying to find a safe landing spot amongst the chaos, and Reaper is consequently crushed by the full shelf.

As the rest of the storage collapses, Tracer lands safely on the ground. She wipes her eyes first, and then smirks.

"Well, that works too." She says. The advantage Tracer received over Reaper will not last for long, so quickly, she runs for a metal staircase, which leads to the focal room, she spotted in the corner. No time is wasted, for she blinks directly to the door.

 _"Ms. Oxton-!"_ Mercy exclaims in a mixture of surprise, rejoice, and pain.

The hero, to save the day, blinks immediately over to the large control panel, but stops when she gets there. At the sight of Mercy convulsing in pain, caused by a twisted kind of electrocution, Tracer could not so easily continue.

"What is he doing to you?" Tracer asks with true concern remarkable in her eyes.

Struggling to speak, Mercy utters: "He plans to kill me- and resurrect me as I did him-" The many cords attached to the operating table glow brightly, " _ah-!_ please-! hurry-!"

"Right away!" Tracer quickly looks at the screen: the progress bar shown is at 70% and climbing. Quickly she thinks; tense whirls of commotion fill the gaps in her disordered mind. She types lightning fast – faster than any normal human – and as the bar reaches 75%, on the screen appears a flashing red prompt:

 **-OVERRIDE ENGAGED-**

 **-INITIATE RELEASE TO AUTHORIZE-**

Recalling the location of the release button she saw on the opposite side of Mercy when she walked in, without turning around, Tracer zips toward it, yet only makes it halfway, when she is halted by a black barrel that hits her in the chest.

Striking the metal obstacle at _full_ speed took the wind out of her. Staggering, and immobilized, she struggles to figure out what happened. Blurred, and in pain, she realizes that the blockage is Reaper's shotgun.

"Ah, ah, ah…" Reaper taunts Tracer. _"Don't, take, another, step."_ He advises her with a low, cutting tone.

Reaper stands in front of Tracer, holding his weapon to her chest.

 _"That's it…"_ Reaper grins, even without a face. _"Forced to deal with the consequence of being alive…"_

The operation has not yet halted: Mercy is still flinching in pain as the progress bar nears the end.

"If you move an inch I will pull the trigger, and 'Dr. Ziegler' will be more dead than me!" Reaper shouts.

Gathering, at the least, half her self, Tracer summons her courage to question Reaper's thinking, even though she is on the verge of tears again.

"…So, you're going to murder her, just to mess with me!? Blame it on me!?"

 _"Aww…"_ Reaper laughs maniacally once again, and presses the shotgun against Tracer's chest forcefully, replying almost playfully: _"We're all gonna die eventually…"_

Tracer panics. She darts her eyes to the progress bar, steadily climbing at 80% now. She looks to the shut-down switch, and she looks death in the face.

What does she do?

What can she do?

…What _can_ she do…?

She looks at the floor, and speaks, her voice strangely steady.

"Well… looks like I'm stuck in a rut."

Reaper keeps his gun trained on her, but senses something amiss.

Tracer looks up at Reaper, and gives him a fake, antagonizing, look of surrender.

She utters: "Guess I'll see you in the next life-"

Suddenly, without warning, Reaper is slammed in the face by a mysterious invisible force, and staggered. Tracer watches, standing completely still, as Reaper is pummeled from all directions, getting hit by what seems like the air, with an impossible amount of speed. The shotguns are knocked out of his hand and he is eventually brought to the ground.

And then Tracer forms into a quick blue light, speeding through all the motions of fighting Reaper in the span of a brief second, until she is brought to Reaper's place on the floor, pushing her foot into his face.

Reaper grits, and shouts, "You idiot!"

"Lena!?" Dr. Ziegler cries out in pain and confusion.

Completely confident, Tracer pushes her boot further into his face.

Somehow, the shut-down lever is switched off without any external force whatsoever. The large generator powering the operation is turned off: Dr. Ziegler is able to rest, and glowing cables connected to the operating table fade away. Tracer forms a blue light yet again, speeding to the lever and back in less than an instant.

"What!?" Reaper mutters in disgust and denial.

"Ah, you like that?" Tracer smiles. She looks away from Reaper and stares into the distance, nodding her head. "Yeah… Pretty cool. So, I figured, if I can rewind myself, why can't I… fast forward? Ya know, it only makes sense. I mean, I already knew how to fast forward a _bit_ but come on, that was too easy. Well, anyway, after I met this nice camel in the desert, we got to talking, and he actually gave me the idea. It was _amazing_ , _yeah,_ the way he presented it. 'There's no need to tumble down a hill; just skip to the good part, when you're on top of the taller one. And so I was like-"

"Lena!" Ziegler calls out to Tracer who somehow let Reaper slip from under her foot while she was monologuing.

"Huh?" Tracer looks down and panics to get away, but before she can move, Reaper is on her right flank, aiming a shotgun right at her head. Without any hesitation, Reaper pulls the trigger.

Everything goes black.

The chronal accelerator dims, and is eventually nothing but a decoration.

She ran out of time.

Is that it?

No more Tracer?

It would take a miracle…

She wonders what the afterlife will be like.

She wonders how she can wonder if she's dead.

She wonders why she isn't dead…

 _"Wunderbar!"_ Mercy, looking her best at Tracer's side, exclaims as she goes to hug the peppy hero. Tears are brought to both of their eyes, and Tracer's chronal accelerator lights up vibrantly again.

"Where's Reaper-?" Tracer asks in a state of panic, attempting to sit up.

"Ah- Relax, relax, you need to rest."

"But-!"

"Now, now. I took care of it. The hinges came undone, I flew in and injected a specially formulated tranquilizer before he could react." She smiles calmly. "He's over there, unconscious."

Tracer gasps with amazement, before jumping up, running and spinning recklessly in circles, all the while shouting: "WHOOOOOO! WE DID IT! OH MY GAWD! YOU'RE A RIGHT STUNNER YOU ARE, DOCTA, HA-HA! WHOOOO!"

Mercy wants to tell her to stop but can't not smile at the sight of Tracer overjoyed.

They did it. Tracer saved the day, and Mercy saved Tracer. Reaper is knocked out on the floor, harmless to anyone, and the mission is complete.

Suddenly Tracer stops with a dead serious look on her face. "I hafta call Winston!"

She immediately pushes a button on her earlobe, signaling a call to the scientist himself. Eventually he picks up, but it doesn't seem like the best time.

"Hello? Lena?" There are numerous sounds of guns firing and low booms. Mercy watches in concern, as Tracer paces and talks.

"Hello? Winston? It's Lena! Everything dandy over there?"

"D- Ummm… Not quite! I-" An explosion so loud Mercy can hear it, rings out from her earbud. Silence ensues.

"Winston!?" Tracer yells.

"-Ah- Sorry about that!" There's some more gunfire…

Tracer seems disappointed.

"Winston?" She is just bored at this point.

"Sorry- my apologies-" Winston collects himself, and it seems more quiet. "Do you have Dr. Ziegler?"

"You bet your monkey-" she stops herself. "You bet I do!"

"…Right! Excellent! Now, by my calculations it appears that, we're going to need you here as fast as humanly possible!"

"Only that fast? If you say so, big guy. I'll be over there with ole Mercy and 'reaper' as fast as _I_ can go."

Mercy intrudes: "Ah! Not a chance! You need at least a day of recovery before you can fight again."

"That's ridiculous, doctor. See you soon Winston!"

"Uh- Bye-bye!" Winston replies.

"Seriously, Lena," Mercy warns, "you died not only a minute ago. You must relax. _Lösen sie._ "

"I've no right bloody idea what you're talking about, doctor! I feel _great!"_

Mercy smiles, and looks over to the man she once knew. "We have to take Gabriel to my hospital: we'll fly to Australia together from there."

Tracer nods.

"You can pilot if you please." Mercy hints.

"Would I ever!"

* * *

Eyy!

I can't not imagine that last bit being orated by an esport announcer :P  
"AND TRACER STICKS THE LANDING, OF HER BOOT ON HIS FACE, BUT IT LOOKS LIKE REAPERS GONNA CATCH HER MONOLOGUING! AND IT LOOKS LIKE REAPER WILL TAKE HER OUT AND CAPTURE THE OBJECTIVE ALL BY HIMSELF! STUNNING PLAY BY BOTH SIDES! OH! OH! OH! THE REZ! THE REZ IS GONNA DO IT! TEAM OVERWATCH TAKES THE OBJECTIVE AND THE TIME OUT OF MY LIFE!"

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed it!


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